Blogging Marathon #122 Week 1, Day 3
Theme : A to Z, something sweet

For a long time, American buttercream was my go to recipe for cake frosting. I follow America’s Test Kitchen recipe, which uses a lot more butter than other recipes and so it’s on the creamier side.

Couple of years back, I joined Craftsy for their online cake decorating classes. I loved the Italian Meringue buttercream recipe from one of the classes and that soon became my go to buttercream recipe for sometime. This Ice cream sundae cake is from that period, under the fondant it’s Italian Meringue buttercream. The Ice cream sundae design for this cake also is from another Craftsy class.

Taste-wise and texture-wise meringue buttercreams are really superior to American buttercream. But, it can be tricky and time consuming to make. You definitely need a stand mixer for this and even then, it can be quite time consuming. I have had times when I have to beat the buttercream for over half an hour to bring it to the right texture. American buttercream is definitely more reliable and extremely easy to prepare. So now a days, I make meringue buttercream only for cakes where I have a lot of time to decorate. Else I go with American buttercream or fresh cream depending on what I have at home.

Read on for the recipe.

Ingredients :

• 8 large egg whites
• 2.5 cups sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tbsp corn syrup
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 sticks softened unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Method:

1. Using a whip attachment on a stand mixer, start mixing the egg whites on low speed.
2. In a small saucepan, add the sugar, salt, water and corn syrup. Cook this to 238 F/ 115 C.
3. Increase the stand mixer speed to medium. Using tongs, remove this from heat and very slowly and steadily pour it to the egg white mixture, keeping to the side of the bowl and away from the whipping attachment.
4. Once all the sugar mixture is in, increase the speed to high and keep whipping it until it cools down to room temperature, this could be anything from 10- 20 minutes. Add in the vanilla extract.
5. Once the egg white mixture is cooled down to room temperature, reduce the speed to low. Add the softened butter, adding a few cubes at a time. Once all the butter has been added, stop the mixer and scrape down the sides well. Switch out the whipping attachment for the paddle attachment and keep whipping the mixture at a high speed until the buttercream is thickened and smooth. Again, this could take anytime between 10-20 minutes. For chocolate buttercream, add 2.5 cups of melted dark chocolate that’s cooled down to room temperature at this stage. Beat again until the buttercream is smooth and thickened.